


A Moment

by drowninglinguists



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5302130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drowninglinguists/pseuds/drowninglinguists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A beloved hc of mine, written out, on how Temari changed her hair style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment

She doesn’t hear the  _snap_ , doesn’t look at him at all–because after all, Shikamaru grumbling incoherently to himself is nothing new–until he stops walking completely.

It takes her longer than it should to notice, and even then she only notices because their steps have stopped echoing in that pleasing tandem thing they do.

She turns back to look at him, already inquisitive, and then her mouth falls open and she  _laughs_. His hair’s hanging down, black and straight, all the way to his shoulders. He looks like a mop.

“Problem?”

Scowling, he holds up what was once his hairband.

“It snapped,” she observes around continuing laughter, “that’s– that's  _unfortu_ –” But she can’t even get the whole word out. _  
_

Temari doesn’t even try to save him face, she claps both hands over her mouth, drawing attention to her present state of amusement, and makes sure to keep facing him so he knows she’s definitely laughing  _at_  him.

His scowl only deepens. “Now we’ve got to go back to my house so I can get another.”

 _That_  stops her laughing. “But the dango shop  _closes_  at six. And it’s five forty-five, and they’re going to stop taking new customers at five fifty-five. We’re all the way on the other side of Konoha. There’s no way we’d make it back in time, even if we were running.”

Moments like this, how well she knows the village comes up. She’s learned it well after all her visits here, and the truth is she really doesn’t need an escort anymore.

But the truth fades away, both of them practiced at ignoring it, and Shikamaru starts talking again.

“Nara men have to wear their hair up in public. I shouldn’t even be letting you see me. I’m supposed to ask you to turn away.”

Which doesn’t so much take away from the tone they’ve long since established of how they’re pretending things are versus how they actually are. They can’t ever really escape it–it’s present every second they’re together, at least for Temari–but she’d think if there was any one place where they could just be people and ignore the chemistry, too-long looks, accidental-on-purpose touching, it would be alone together.

It turns out, it’s just the opposite.

However, they’re both also quite good at ignoring it–at ignoring everything they feel.

“Well geez, fine,” Temari sighs heavily, “if it’s that important to you.”

Words a friend would say, anyone who cared about him who could help him woul say–

Her fingers move deftly to the back of her head, taking out each of her four ponytails one by one. “Here,” she says at last, offering him one.

He only stares a moment too long before he takes it.

“You don’t have lice or anything, right? Like some rare kind of desert lice that only–”

“I am doing you a  _favor_!” She exclaims, but she’s laughing.

And he’s grinning. Neither of them mean this. It’s simply borne from closeness. They smile at other people. All the time.

“You’re probably immune, since you’re from there,” he goes on, “but I’m–”

“That’s it.” She declares, grabbing the front of his jacket and towing him forward a few feet. He comes right along, amused, but more expectant than anything. Temari climbs deftly onto the bench they’re now in front of, readies one of the hair ties, and starts gathering his hair together.

“What are you  _doing_?” He asks, laughing. His voice is strange.  _The laugh is probably a disguise_ , she realizes distantly, but she chooses to ignore that too.

“Helping.” It’s a bit strange combing her fingers through someone else’s hair. She’s probably pulling at his scalp, as she’s always found it quite difficult to tell what’s too hard for other people when she’s forced brushes through her brothers’ hair in the past, but he doesn’t complain. For her first experience putting someone’s hair in a ponytail, she figures she does alright.

The only strange thing is how still Shikamaru is the whole time. How he doesn’t move _at all_  until she’s back on the ground in front of him. It’s probably nothing, though, trust between colleagues–

“I did very well, I’ll have you know.” She informs him. “No one will ever know.”

_No one will ever know I offered you hair ties–_  
  
_No one will ever know I put your hair up for you–_

_No one will ever know I climbed on a bench to do it instead of making you sit on your knees–_

_No one will ever know the hesitation, the way I pulled my fingers through your hair and pretend not to like it–_

_No one will ever know you let me._

“Thanks,” he says warmly. His voice sounds weird still, as though he’s injecting false warmth so she knows he truly appreciates the gesture. As though she can’t read him like a book and know something’s up by his tone.

He holds up his hand though, offering her the other hairties tie hooked around of his three fingers and his thumb, and this latest intuitive thought process gets pushed to the back of her head like all the others.

The impulse flares up again–to touch him–but this time something’s different, this time she figures, since she’s on a roll, she can do something stupid.

Grasping his hand in both of hers, she takes two back from him and rolls the last remaining tie back onto his wrist. “Keep it. Just in case.”

He doesn’t say thanks this time; in fact, the only thing he really does is look at her, or rather stare, for several minute, as if–

“Hmm?” She asks when she remembers to ignore it. It’s not anything he’s never done. She isn’t affected by it. She just needed to remind him to ignore it, too.

“What about your hair?” He asks, as though she looks monumentally different with her hair down and absolutely no one will recognize her.

“Oh, shit,” she remembers suddenly, “yeah.” Deftly, she moves to tie one half of her hair into a ponytail, and then the other half into another. It’s bouncier than she’s used to, evidently hair isn’t pulled as tightly for two ponytails as it is for four, but it’s nice in a way, to change it up.

“How is it?” She asks, smirk lifting up one corner of her mouth.

“It’s way too cute,” he says, “someone’s going to compliment you and you’re going to punch them through a wall.” He’s not ignoring it.

It’s not a response she expected, an it throws her. Her surprise is the  _only_  reason she loses control of herself to the extent that her heart skips a beat.

“Make sure it isn’t you." She breathes, though her tone doesn’t lack authority.

There’s a beat, a pause too long for her to believe he needs that much time to think. No, he’s  _looking_ again. He’s allowing himself this moment, too.

His mouth moves, and it-whatever it was, always is that always comes back between them-shatters.

"It’s five fifty. We’re not gonna make it if we don’t go now.”

They start walking again, and Temari listens to their tandem footsteps clacking against the sidewalk together. Their hands brush, like they always do, and neither of them acknowledge it, like they always do.

The sound of their effortlessly near-simultaneous footsteps is less pleasing this time. That whole  _hair tie thing_  has reminded her why she doesn’t look at him, because every time she does it turns into a  _moment_. It’s reminded her why she doesn’t touch him–she does it once and she wants do it  _again_ , and just how dangerous it is when he looks at her like that. _  
_

Not that he ever looks any  _other_  way at her, but they’re alone right now. No one to temper the tension, the stuff that clings in the physical distance between them like it wants them to be uncomfortable, like it wants them to  _give in_. _  
_

Shikamaru’s hand clasps hers suddenly– _he’s giving in completely, just for this moment–_ and she half-turns to give him her full attention. Teal eyes, curious and impulsive, maybe she’s daring enough, after all the not-ignoring he’s done tonight, to–

“Naruto’s wedding is tomorrow.” Shikamaru says. It’s why the dango shop is closing so early. The entire village is excited about the next Hokage’s wedding.

“Gaara and I are going.” She nods. There’s a funny feeling in her throat.

Shikamaru fidgets, just slightly, and his right shoe drags a quick line in the dirt.

“You could go… with me.  _And_  Gaara. You and Gaara could go with me.” Shikamaru is quick to add. “It’s just that, I’d pick you guys up. And eat next to you. And Chouji and Ino would sit with us, too. And we might end up, I don’t know, dancing together–” _  
_

“Because it’s a wedding,” she cuts him off, nodding ,“and people dance at weddings.”

He nods. “Exactly. So I think, as strategists, we'd be wise to expect it. So you could go with me. If you wanted.” She thinks there might be something in his throat, too. It seems as though he can barely look at her now, but that he's focing himself for whatever reason, maybe so he doesn't miss this moment. She has a feeling it's important.

“Okay,” she says.

The slight smile on his face confirms it: this _is_ important.

In this moment, she lets herself let go a little, too, lets herself  _stare_ back at him. 

She takes in the exact shade of brown his eyes are, as is her first priority when the times she lets go come, the slant of his eyebrows, that right now might portray him as a tiny bit worried, the angle of his cheekbones, high and just the faintest bit pink, the line of his jaw, defined and masculine. And his neck, where she can see his adam’s apple bob when he swallows thickly.

And then the moment is over, an unspoken, simultaneous notion between them as, at once Shikamaru lets go of her hand and Temari’s eyes return to the path in front of them.

They walk in the dango shop door at six fifty-four.


End file.
